Mr. Turner

Composite Score: 83.67

Starring: Timothy Spall, Paul Jesson, Dorothy Atkinson, Marion Bailey, Karl Johnson, Ruth Sheen, Martin Savage, Joshua McGuire, and David Horovitch

Director: Mike Leigh

Writer: Mike Leigh

Genres: Biography, Drama, History

MPAA Rating: R for some sexual content

Box Office: $22.18 million worldwide

Why should you Watch This Film?

                Mr. Turner is Mike Leigh’s biopic about the later years of the life of British painter JMW Turner, starring Timothy Spall as the titular artist. The film follows a collection of stories from around 1825 until his death in 1851, highlighting the artist’s eccentricities, connections with his fellow artists, family ties, brilliant artistic skill, and his relationship with the widow Mrs. Sophia Booth, at whose home he died. The period piece received Oscar nominations for its costumes, cinematography, score, and production design – ultimately testaments to Mike Leigh’s capabilities when given a decent budget. Spall’s performance, though perhaps not his best, carries the film as the audience watches what can only be described as one of the most appalling men in history manages to make beauty on the canvas in defiance of his own base nature. It goes against the norms of both period pieces and biopics, not seeking to tell a cohesive story of romance or regret, but simply painting the life of the artist as it occurred, through his own lens of perception.

Why shouldn’t you Watch This Film?

                That very deviation from the norm of its type might make Mr. Turner too much of an outlier for all audiences. It looks like a Victorian-era film and feels like an artist’s biopic, but at the same time, none of those familiar beats are present. Perhaps it stems from my own lack of familiarity with the subject, but the film seems to offer no actual statement on Turner’s life or art other than presenting it to the audience. We get to see Turner in all his glory – or lack thereof – from start to finish without any sort of indication as to how we ought to feel from the filmmakers. For some, such seeming objectivity might be a welcome reprieve from so many films with overt agendas. For others, this freedom might be too off-putting and leave them frustrated, as indicated by the film’s low audience score and IMDB rating (53% and 6.8 respectively). If you can get past Leigh’s unmistakable fingerprints, the film should be a fairly enjoyable two and a half hours.

So wait, why should you Watch This Film?

                Timothy Spall does an excellent job as the abrasive but talented Turner. Though not quite at the level of his Topsy-Turvy supporting performance, Spall takes this fairly enigmatic character and runs with it. His inescapable grossness draws the audience into the film, fascinated to see how such an absurdly revolting character could create such excellent and beautiful art. As the story progresses, Spall’s animalistic grunts and to-the-point retorts begin to become familiar to the audience, seeming only natural as the artist drifts deeper into himself even as he seeks greater levels of human connection. Spall’s performance creates director Mike Leigh’s classic juxtaposition of beauty and ugliness interwoven together, in this case in the person and his art.

                In addition to Spall’s performance, Leigh has crafted a film in Mr. Turner that fits the bill of its subject, with each scene appearing as a new piece of Victorian art. Indeed, there were a few scenes that cut from art to landscapes where I did not even realize that I was no longer looking at a painting but at a real scene. Leigh and his crew somehow managed to bring art from this era to the screen simply in their scene composition. It is glorious to behold and only serves to add to Leigh’s intentional theming of beauty and ugliness in contrast and in harmony.

                Cinematographic excellence and a noteworthy lead performance from Timothy Spall have made Mr. Turner into a classic period biopic, worthy of note among the Greatest Films of All Time. The film’s deviation from typical period and biopic tropes might leave some audiences scrambling for a foothold, but those who look past that, and who are perhaps more familiar with writer/director Mike Leigh’s other works, are sure to find a film worth watching. It is currently available to rent on most streaming services for those interested.